A number of other native Mongols are used, but in keeping with the Red policy everywhere, they are drawn from the riff-raff, from what is virtually a pariah class. This the better class Mongols naturally resent. The population of Mongolia, which probably does not exceed 500,000, is, according 10 reliable figures, divided as follows: lamas, 44.6 per cent., nobles 5.6 per cent., serfs 16.6 per cent.; freemen 26.2 per cent., and the so-called declassé Mongols 7 per cent. Ao cording to foreign traders and according te Mongols who have come to Peking, the Soviet makes a point of cultivating and using this declassé clement only, with the re sult that all- other classes are solidly and bitterly opposed to the whole regime. A policy~has been instituted deliberately to augment; this outcast element, officially known as the nomad proletariat, depriving propertied Mongols of their herds through taxation. Aj herd of 50 animals is taxed, for instance $300 a year, which means that with the Jow prices paid for animals in outer Mongolia, the herd would be taxed out of existence la two years.
The economic policy of the Soviet is to force all food exports to go te Russia and to prevent the export of money from Mongolia by putting unreasonably high taxes on imports from China and Manchuria. Accounts of conditions brought back by foreigners who try to do business in Mongolia, vary greatly for the simple reason that those who go.there to buy products—if they h n to be other than foodstuffs—or to develop the Mongol output along any line, are tolerated if they are not actually welcomed, because hey either bring in money or increase production. Those who go to Mongolia to sell, that is to take money out of the country, are treated in summary fashion and ere quickly discouraged. The taxes! charged on these imports are absurdly high and then when the tax is paid the merchant is forced to sell his produce at the Soviet's price. For instance one man who took in brandy paid $250 per bottle import duty and was then told that he must not charge over $2 a bottle for it. Motor cars of travellers are taxed $50 every time they enter or depart from Urga. The Mongols are in some districts allowed to sell their animals to the government only and that at a very low price. The export of cattle and horses except to Russia is strictly prohibited. Nomads who try to escape from the Red rule by moving into Inner Mongolia with their flocks and herds are pursued, brought back and heavily fined. Recently when Puntsuk Wang, who is now in Peking, escaped from Outer Mongolia into Inner Mongolia with his large herds, the Red troops discovered that he was gone and pursued him far into Chinese territory. The whole story is that the Soviet leaders, having impoverished, starved and exhaust-; ed their own people through. their absurd economic experiments, are
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.